Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – For the first time in his short life, Imad Dib, orphaned by the Gaza war, was preparing to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha without his parents.
"Dad would buy us a sheep, but now we are alone," the 11-year-old said.
Before the war, he said, "I loved Eid so much, I was excited for it each year, to be able to celebrate and wear new clothes," he said of the Eid tradition, looking weary in his patched-up shoes.
Every day, the boy returns to the ashes and charred tarp, which are all that's left of the tent in which he once sheltered with his family. Dib said he wanted to remember his parents, who were killed in an Israeli air strike.
This year, rather than celebrating, he is preoccupied simply with the thought of how he and his four sisters will find anything at all to eat.
According to Muslim tradition, Eid al-Adha commemorates the sacrifice Ibrahim (known to Christians and Jews as Abraham) was about to make by killing his son, before the angel Gabriel intervened and offered him a sheep to sacrifice instead.
In a normal year, Gazans would now be preparing for big family get-togethers, traditionally centred around the sacrifice and eating of a sheep.
Markets would be busy with people shopping for sweets and pastries, while toy shops and those selling children's clothes would stay open late into the night for last-minute gifts.
Even poverty and the years-long Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory could not get in the way of the festivities.
Yet 20 months of war between Israel and Hamas, [...], have brought an end to all that.
With entire neighbourhoods levelled, almost all of the population displaced, often multiple times, and severe shortages brought on by a two-month blockade on aid, there is little possibility of celebration.
"This time of year, I might receive up to 300 orders, including for calves and sheep, but this year I haven't had a single one," said Ahmed al-Zayigh, a butcher in Gaza City.
Mohammed Othman, a 36-year-old displaced with his family to Deir el-Balah, said "One kilo of meat has become a dream... we just hope to find bread to feed our children on the day of Eid, and they will rejoice over flour as if it were meat".
Many Gazans said they longed for a time when it was possible, as prescribed in the Koran, to share part of their meat with the less fortunate.
"Tomorrow we will go to the Eid prayer," said Hamza Sobeh, 37, living in the Al-Mawasi displacement camp in southern Gaza.
Sobeh was observing the fast ritual, which is believed to erase sins on the eve of the festival, and reciting takbirs -- prayers glorifying God -- with his children.
"I want them to feel the joy of Eid, at least in a religious sense, so that they don't lose hope," he said, adding that he was considering buying them some date-filled pastries.
However, the majority of people interviewed by AFP journalists said they would not be able to recreate even a sliver of the usual celebrations, and not just because it was unaffordable.
"This Eid tastes of blood," said Sami Felfel, from the north of the Gaza Strip.
"These are the hardest years we've lived in Gaza," he said.